


Memento

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-17
Updated: 2010-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:42:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sylar makes a personal stop upon arriving in New York</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memento

The sign hanging in the door of the shut down shop reads closed.

He remembers placing the sign there the night before he left the city, on his way to find Zane Taylor. He did not realize it at the time but it was a momentous evening; the eve of the beginning. He wonders if anyone noticed that this watchmakers store never re-opened. Business had been steady enough that surely someone had made note. However that was hardly an issue now. This shop is a remnant of the past, of another life.

He had returned once since then, but very briefly. In and out, it had taken twenty minutes at most. That was another significant night; the eve of something altogether different.

He has been drawn here tonight, pulled by something unexplainable. Standing in front of his father's old shop he steps towards the front door and kneels down. Feeling with his hands underneath the space between the bottom of the door and the sidewalk, he very consciously traces his fingers along the rough ridges until he feels it. With a smile he pulls his hands back, in his fingers a dirt covered key. Standing back up he slides the key into the front door lock and turns it, listening for the click.

Open sesame.

Left hand on the glass, right hand on the door handle, Sylar takes a deep breath and pushes inside.

He is greeted with a moment frozen in time.

The shop is exactly as he had left it. Items all about and yet all precisely placed in a particular order that his mind immediately recognizes and welcomes as familiar. He walks along the ordered clutter towards his old workstation desk. Seeing his old chair causes his smile to widen. So many hours were spent sitting here, hunched over the desk, tools laid out, a broken timepiece and its skeletal parts placed with care on a felt cloth.

Sylar reaches forward and turns on the desk lamp with the gentle yank of the metal chain. He pulls out the chair and sits down. With a moments hesitation he puts both of his hands on the desk, feeling it the way a blind man sees with his sense of touch. It is like greeting an old friend again.

Sylar did not think he would miss this shop as much as he does right now. Apparently it meant more to him than he had realized.

But that is not why he is here.

Looking down to his right he pulls open one of the desk drawers. Peering into it he reaches inside and towards the back. Awkwardly feeling around, his fingers eventually make contact with the latch that opens a secret compartment. Removing the false back wall of the drawer Sylar is able to extract the small box stuck in there.

A cigar box his father had given him as a child, Sylar had treasured it, treating it as a rare collector item. Sylar places it directly in front of him at the edge of the desk. He allows his fingers to delicately skim along the lid, wiping away the many months collection of dust in the process.

He thinks to himself that if the entire shop where to burn down he would be devastated, but if this cigar box were to be lost he would be destroyed.

This was one of his motivations for returning to New York.

Ditching the twins, Maya and Alejandro, at the motel, he had initially gone out for a walk to clear his head and get some much needed space from Alejandro who seemed to be looking for ways to kill him quickly and efficiently. This is where he had found himself, which in retrospect comes as no surprise.

Reaching into his pant pocket he pulls out a peso. While still traveling in Mexico, Maya had bought them all snacks one afternoon and had given him the peso from her change, at his request, as a token of remembrance. For Maya the peso is a reminder of traveling together, strangers destined to meet through God's grace, along dangerous paths to the Promised Land. For Sylar the peso is a physical representation of his rebirth as a phoenix from the ashes; escaping from capture and taking control of his journey back home, despite his powers being stolen from him. He plans to add this token to the box.   
But first –

Sylar's fingers rest on the lid for a few moments before he flips the top open. Inside are the select few objects whose significance allows their inclusion by representing particular milestones, so-to-speak, that deserve recognition.

His fingers go to work feeling for specific memories while his pupils widen with unabashed desire.

The first item he picks up for intimate inspection is the timepiece. It is a mechanism so elegant it still takes his breath away. The parts fit together perfectly as only they can. People think that the parts of a watch are interchangeable but Sylar knows better. It would never work to supplant a part from another watch into this one, a Frankenstein creation. The thought draws a shudder through his body.

It is not just any watch. This is the one he was working on when Dr. Chandra Suresh had stepped into the shop and entered Gabriel's life. It had not happened immediately but through that evening and the countless days and nights that followed, Gabriel's small world had exploded into an infinite universe.

Chandra had become a surrogate father to Gabriel, speaking with him, sharing, guiding; filling the void created by his own neglectful and non-existent father. As an extension of Gabriel, Sylar had come forth during this time acting on the thoughts and desires that Gabriel had always wanted to. Chandra had been Sylar's mentor and eventual betrayer.

Sylar turns the timepiece over in his hands. It reminds him of an important life lesson:   
Do not get close. People always leave.

It is a lesson he has had to learn over and over again. It did not take the first time.

He carefully puts the timepiece back in the cigar box and feels around for the next stop down memory lane.

His fingers close down upon what feels like a trinket. Lifting it out of the box he brings it closer and lets his eyes trip along the edges and angles. It is a miniature oil well with the flag of Texas jutting out of the top. The trinket is the perfect size to fit in a snow globe. This is from the last one he ever bought his mother, before he-- accidentally, of course, but still.

A mother's love is remarkable, unlike anything else in the world. It should be unconditional. He tried so hard to be someone in her eyes, but her expectations were too great and they only got worse after his father had left.

Rubbing his fingers along the hard lines of the oil well Sylar recalls how his mother had turned away from him during that last visit. She had done the unthinkable: she rejected her own flesh and blood, her only son.

She is the one who had forced Gabriel into the dark corner of his mind. She had sent him away as some punishment for being a bad boy and then…he had taken her life, accidentally, but still.

Gabriel had disappeared that night along with his mother, far removed from this world. Together they passed into nothingness.

Sylar puts the oil well miniature back in the box. He sits back for a moment in his chair; deep breaths bring the rise and fall of his chest to a steady rhythm, before he reaches back into the box.

Soft, yet course, the next token of remembrance he closes his fingers around is a lock of brown hair held together by an elastic band.

If it were the 19th Century this lock of hair would be a romantic token of love between a suitor and his intended. Sylar nearly snorts at the idea. This lock of hair represents nothing of the sort. Rather it is a physical reminder of his nemesis, from their second battle. He had almost gotten the better of Peter Petrelli…almost. Instead, all he had was this.

So much alike with such similar abilities, but Petrelli is loved and protected while Sylar is reviled and hunted. Sylar knows it is their method that makes the difference in how they are perceived. Still, he feels the unfairness in the discrepancy.

Sylar smirks at the hair held between his fingers. That was the night he nearly ended Petrelli's existence; victory was close before it was ripped from his grasp. They had battled again not long after with Sylar getting the worst of it. He is certain they will battle one more time. Sylar promises himself he will walk away from that with a token, worth so much more, to replace this one.

He tosses the lock of hair back in the box.

He does not immediately reach for the next token, the last one. Pushing his chair back Sylar steps up from the desk and paces a few steps away. His heart is suddenly pounding through his chest, thousands of beats per minute. If he did not know any better Sylar would think he is having a heart attack or a panic attack. He forces deep breaths into his body, attempting to calm it down. After an anxious ten minutes he is finally ready.

Nervously he walks back to the desk and sits down in his chair. Scooting the chair closer to the desk he silently talks his mind into letting his fingers reach into the cigar box.

What he pulls out last – and he has purposely kept it for last – is the reason he is here tonight. Sylar's fingers hold it delicately in front of him. It would seem like nothing but it is actually so much that he can feel his heart begin to speed up again.

In his hands is a piece of note paper folded up around an irregularly shaped object. With care he unfolds the paper, drawing out the process; he is both savouring each action as well as delaying the final reveal.

The paper loosens its grip on the object at its centre and Sylar ends up with the paper in his left hand and a ragged piece of green glass, from a teacup, in his right. Taking in another deep breath he lets it out slowly with deliberation.

These two items together mark a very specific day for Sylar, a day that still flickers through his mind of its own free will. In a way this token is connected to the lock of hair, but Sylar prefers to keep those separate so as not to taint this particular one.

His eyes go between the paper and the glass.

Such emotional extremes, from two conflicting moments, the feelings are practically imbedded in the objects. Sylar puts down the piece of glass and holds the paper, spread open, in both hands. It is still clear as day, Mohinder's handwriting:

_Good Morning Zane,   
Out to pick up breakfast.   
Be back soon.   
Mohinder   
_  
The day had started off just right. Sylar had woken up to an empty apartment but quickly found the note on Mohinder's desk. Not fifteen minutes later Mohinder had returned with bagels and cream cheese. Over breakfast they had chatted as they always did.

Sylar had come to love these conversations. Working with Mohinder everyday, all day, for the first time in his life Sylar had felt a bond with someone who was not a parental figure or figure of authority, but rather a friend, his age, his peer, his –

Sylar's eyes follow along the curves and strokes of Mohinder's handwriting. He remembers standing in that apartment wondering how much longer he could get away with playing Zane Taylor.

It had been such a change from days earlier when he could not wait to step out of the Zane role. All that time with Mohinder, and Sylar started to think about being Zane indefinitely. Anything to prolong their time together.

This note, from that morning, is not just ink on paper. It is a testament.

Sylar puts the note down on the desk and picks up the green piece of glass. The rough edges, a contrast to the smooth paper, are remarkably symbolic. A toast to friends, the truth had come down like a guillotine not five seconds later. This piece of glass, from the teacup that fell from Sylar's drugged hands and shattered on the floor below, is the specific moment in time realized in solid form.

It is Sylar's Fall, when Mohinder cast him out and Zane officially ceased to exist.

There was no turning back. No way to clarify or confirm or, God help him, _plead_ that it was not all a lie as part of some gigantic set up. Expelled so fast from the life he had briefly tasted but fell so fully in love with, Sylar's instincts had kicked in as an act of self- preservation. Those same instincts granted Mohinder his life, and not just for that night.

His mother's rejection had broken his heart.   
Mohinder's rejection had cracked his soul.

This piece of glass hitting nerve points in his fingertips was the beginning of his next metamorphosis begat from the end of his previous incantation. Together with the piece of paper, this memento is the one point in his life he keeps coming back to. It is the moment his heart and mind refuses to move on from, refusing to let go of.

Beyond his own prioritized self-serving reasoning that Mohinder is the only person who should be able to help him with his current ability issue, Sylar also wants to fix what happened with Mohinder. It is an alien sensation wanting to try with someone; so few have ever been worth the time.

Sylar lays the piece of glass on the edge of the notepaper that is on the desk. He folds the paper, rewrapping the glass. When he is finished he picks it up to place it back in the cigar box. Holding it in his hand he feels the power that this memento has for him; so much more than the timepiece, miniature oil well, lock of hair and the peso. Sylar is tempted to take it with him but with the road ahead still so unclear he knows it is safer to leave it here, with the others, hidden away.

He finally places it gently in the box, his fingers lingering an extra moment before he removes them to quickly toss in the peso and close the lid. Picking up the box he puts it back in the drawer. Putting the false backing in place, he slowly closes the drawer.

Sylar tells himself that this is it, his next stage. It will begin tomorrow. He will reveal himself to Mohinder and do whatever it takes to convince Mohinder to make this work. Sylar is prepared for this fight, especially knowing just how tough Mohinder will be to break.

_Long is the way and hard that out of Hell leads up to light_ and all that stuff he filled his head with as a teenager now flashes through his mind.

With a newfound resolution, Sylar stands up and places his chair back up against the desk. He turns the lamp off and with a final glance around the shop he heads back to the front door. Now that he is home he will make sure to visit the shop as often as he can. But right now his focus is elsewhere.

Stepping outside into the buzzing New York night air, Sylar turns around and locks the door behind him. Kneeling down he places the key back in the hideaway spot and straightens up. He allows himself a moment to take in the storefront with his eyes.

This shop is so much a part of him, who he was. The tokens, hidden inside, mark his current existence. That one memento has claims on him and will guide his current path. It has given a purpose back to Sylar's life.

Turning right he begins his trek back to the motel.

The watchmakers shop stays as it has been for months. Its lights are off and a closed sign hangs in the doorway.

It shows no indication of the life that has briefly touched its walls. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> **Nominated for Best Sylar Characterization**


End file.
